Bernskiold Media

Story: The Shooting of a Team Photograph

For this first Photography/Video/Media Thursday, I’d like to talk photography, specifically the challenges when shooting a team. I recently had the opportunity of shooting the official school football (soccer for your americans) team for a city championship. What was needed was a serious group photo and one humorous photo. With the fact that this was to take place in the school auditorium during a break, there wasn’t really much time!

There was another big challenge apart from the time, equipment. I’ve only recently begun purchasing flash accessories and building my flash equipment, and that was one of the problems.

Although I’d gotten my Lastolite Ezybox Softbox a couple of days before, I hadn’t got the tilt-head that I ordered, meaning the softbox, mounted high on a light stand couldn’t be tilted down on the subjects. Well, easily solved, I had a friend hold the entire stand and tilt it all downwards. Lesson, make sure you have the right equipment beforehand, or make sure to have a friend or assistant there with you!

This was the image that I eventually got (the serious one). I wanted to go for the dramatic style which really does work well equipment wise, having only one flash! Of course there are things that I could have improved by having a second flash, adding a little fill in on the right side, or by using a reflector to bounce some light back in. It did therefore need a bit of saving in Lightroom not to have completely unrecognizable half-faces.

The beauty of shooting a school team of such a small size is that I didn’t need to worry about the posing. True enough, you get quire used to posing yourself for group photos after so many years don’t you? The real tough lesson I learned was to shoot with space around and to crop later! I ended up cutting away the Sparta head (the team is called "Rudebecks Spartans") most of the time although was very lucky (definitely luck) to get at least two where I did shoot wider.

Here is a little sketch about how I did the lighting setup as well, and happy shooting! 

Equipment Used

• Nikon D50
• Nikkor 18-55 lens
• Nikon SB-600 Speedlight
• Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe 38×38cm
• Elinchrome Light stand
• Sync cord